A 27-year-old "serial entrepreneur" from Austin named Kyle has officially become the internet's newest cautionary tale after documenting his journey from a $400 crypto investment to a grand total of $12.43, which he describes in his viral LinkedIn essay as "the most valuable tuition I've ever paid." Kyle's post, titled "I Lost 97% of My Portfolio.
Here's What It Taught Me About Grit," has racked up 2.3 million views, mostly from people trying to figure out whether he's serious or running some kind of meta-bit.
He is, unfortunately, completely serious.
The saga began in November when Kyle, fresh off a podcast about "generational wealth," dumped his entire DoorDash savings into a token called $MOONPUP he found on a subreddit where the top comment was just the word "aped." Within 72 hours, $MOONPUP had cratered so hard that the chart now looks like a ski jump. "This isn't a loss," Kyle wrote. "It's a data point." Financial experts, meanwhile, are calling it something else. "That's a loss," said one certified financial planner who asked not to be named because she "doesn't want to be associated with this." But here's the part that really set the comments section ablaze: Kyle is now selling a $99 course called "Resilience Trading," where he promises to teach others how to "lose with purpose." As of Tuesday, eleven people had bought it, which means Kyle has now made more money selling failure than he ever made trading crypto.
The replies range from "this is performance art" to "sir, this is a Wendy's" to a surprising number of people asking for the course link.
Reddit's r/wallstreetbets, meanwhile, has adopted Kyle as a folk hero, with one user writing, "Finally, a loss porn origin story with a redemption arc that's actually just another loss." What makes Kyle's situation so beautifully American is the sheer confidence involved.
He didn't just lose money — he lost money and immediately pivoted to monetizing the losing.
Somewhere, a business school professor just felt a disturbance in the force and doesn't know why.
To be fair, Kyle isn't the first person to turn a financial faceplant into content.
The influencer economy has been built on this exact model for years.
There is no step four, because step three is where the actual money lives.
It's that Kyle's LinkedIn essay has 4,000 words and zero of them are "I should have just bought an index fund." That sentence is free, Kyle.
You can have it. **The takeaway:** Look, crypto can be a legitimate part of a diversified portfolio, but $MOONPUP is not a portfolio — it's a lottery ticket with a Discord server.
If your investment strategy involves the word "aped" and the phrase "trust me bro," you're not investing.
You're gambling with extra steps and worse graphics.
And if you're about to spend $99 on a course taught by a guy who lost 97% of his money, maybe just Venmo me the $99 instead.
Final Thoughts
I'll send you a PDF that says "don't do that." Same value, faster delivery.